A profile of the engineering students' conceptual understanding on electricity / Nazlinda Abdullah

This study aimed in revalidating a reliable diagnostic instrument on electricity which emphasized on parallel resistors. At the same time, it has also established an academic profile of the engineering students' conceptual understanding on electricity; examined the difficulty and discrimination...

Full description

Saved in:

Bibliographic Details
Main Author:	Abdullah, Nazlinda
Format:	Thesis
Language:	English
Published:	2014
Subjects:	Electric power distribution Electric power transmission
Online Access:	https://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/14142/3/14142.pdf
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!

id	my-uitm-ir.14142
record_format	uketd_dc
spelling	my-uitm-ir.141422023-01-30T04:08:51Z A profile of the engineering students' conceptual understanding on electricity / Nazlinda Abdullah 2014 Abdullah, Nazlinda Electric power distribution. Electric power transmission Electric apparatus and materials. Electric circuits. Electric networks This study aimed in revalidating a reliable diagnostic instrument on electricity which emphasized on parallel resistors. At the same time, it has also established an academic profile of the engineering students' conceptual understanding on electricity; examined the difficulty and discrimination level of the items and assessed the students' conception and misconceptions on electricity. Five intact classes chosen by cluster sampling from fifteen existing classes of PHY 193 were involved in this study, namely the second semester engineering students undergoing a Diploma in Engineering program. The respondents comprised 102engineering students with 56 from the Electrical Engineering group, 28 from the Mechanical Engineering and 18 Civil Engineering students studying in a local university. The descriptive approach was used in this study, aimed at addressing the four research questions which examined the academic profiles of theengineering students' conceptual understanding on electricity, analyzed the validity and reliability of the instrument PCCUT,(Parallel Circuit Conceptual Understanding Test, PCCUT), assessed the items' difficulty and discriminating levels and the students' conceptions and misconceptions on electricity. The diagnostic instrument (PCCUT) used in this study was distributed to the students and the Rasch Measurement Model was used with the WINSTEP software version 3.71.0.1 during the analysis process. The result has produced a good Cronbach Alpha reliability value of 0.82 and an excellent item reliability of 0.97. In order to clarify the responses provided by the students in terms of the difficulties that they encountered in electricity, a set of interview questions was given to the lecturers teaching the course. The lecturers confirmed that the students had difficulties in understanding the concepts of current and voltage. Written responses given by the students have acted as guidelines to the source of misconceptions. The findings of this study indicated that each of the engineering students can be categorized into one of the six academic bands which are the 'exceptional', the 'proficient', the 'have some knowledge', the 'need improvement', the 'problematic' and the 'not recommended'. These categories act as performance indicators informing the students and others of their basic level of conceptual understanding on electricity. The analysis of PCCUT has also enabled the items to be placed in hierarchical order and according to its discrimination level, with the concept of current being the most difficult and the most non-discriminating (item 13). Some conceptions and most importantly, misconceptions which occurred among the students have also been uncovered. 'Local, sequential and superposition reasonings' are the most common misconceptions. By focusing on the areas of misconceptions and allocating more time to these issues, proper instruction could be planned in improving the students' weaknesses. In addition, these findings also provide some guidance for research directions into local and international students' common areas of misconceptions. 2014 Thesis https://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/14142/ https://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/14142/3/14142.pdf text en public phd doctoral Universiti Teknologi MARA Faculty of Education
institution	Universiti Teknologi MARA
collection	UiTM Institutional Repository
language	English
topic	Electric power distribution Electric power transmission Electric power distribution Electric power transmission
spellingShingle	Electric power distribution Electric power transmission Electric power distribution Electric power transmission Abdullah, Nazlinda A profile of the engineering students' conceptual understanding on electricity / Nazlinda Abdullah
description	This study aimed in revalidating a reliable diagnostic instrument on electricity which emphasized on parallel resistors. At the same time, it has also established an academic profile of the engineering students' conceptual understanding on electricity; examined the difficulty and discrimination level of the items and assessed the students' conception and misconceptions on electricity. Five intact classes chosen by cluster sampling from fifteen existing classes of PHY 193 were involved in this study, namely the second semester engineering students undergoing a Diploma in Engineering program. The respondents comprised 102engineering students with 56 from the Electrical Engineering group, 28 from the Mechanical Engineering and 18 Civil Engineering students studying in a local university. The descriptive approach was used in this study, aimed at addressing the four research questions which examined the academic profiles of theengineering students' conceptual understanding on electricity, analyzed the validity and reliability of the instrument PCCUT,(Parallel Circuit Conceptual Understanding Test, PCCUT), assessed the items' difficulty and discriminating levels and the students' conceptions and misconceptions on electricity. The diagnostic instrument (PCCUT) used in this study was distributed to the students and the Rasch Measurement Model was used with the WINSTEP software version 3.71.0.1 during the analysis process. The result has produced a good Cronbach Alpha reliability value of 0.82 and an excellent item reliability of 0.97. In order to clarify the responses provided by the students in terms of the difficulties that they encountered in electricity, a set of interview questions was given to the lecturers teaching the course. The lecturers confirmed that the students had difficulties in understanding the concepts of current and voltage. Written responses given by the students have acted as guidelines to the source of misconceptions. The findings of this study indicated that each of the engineering students can be categorized into one of the six academic bands which are the 'exceptional', the 'proficient', the 'have some knowledge', the 'need improvement', the 'problematic' and the 'not recommended'. These categories act as performance indicators informing the students and others of their basic level of conceptual understanding on electricity. The analysis of PCCUT has also enabled the items to be placed in hierarchical order and according to its discrimination level, with the concept of current being the most difficult and the most non-discriminating (item 13). Some conceptions and most importantly, misconceptions which occurred among the students have also been uncovered. 'Local, sequential and superposition reasonings' are the most common misconceptions. By focusing on the areas of misconceptions and allocating more time to these issues, proper instruction could be planned in improving the students' weaknesses. In addition, these findings also provide some guidance for research directions into local and international students' common areas of misconceptions.
format	Thesis
qualification_name	Doctor of Philosophy (PhD.)
qualification_level	Doctorate
author	Abdullah, Nazlinda
author_facet	Abdullah, Nazlinda
author_sort	Abdullah, Nazlinda
title	A profile of the engineering students' conceptual understanding on electricity / Nazlinda Abdullah
title_short	A profile of the engineering students' conceptual understanding on electricity / Nazlinda Abdullah
title_full	A profile of the engineering students' conceptual understanding on electricity / Nazlinda Abdullah
title_fullStr	A profile of the engineering students' conceptual understanding on electricity / Nazlinda Abdullah
title_full_unstemmed	A profile of the engineering students' conceptual understanding on electricity / Nazlinda Abdullah
title_sort	profile of the engineering students' conceptual understanding on electricity / nazlinda abdullah
granting_institution	Universiti Teknologi MARA
granting_department	Faculty of Education
publishDate	2014
url	https://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/14142/3/14142.pdf
_version_	1783733216992034816

A profile of the engineering students' conceptual understanding on electricity / Nazlinda Abdullah

Similar Items